Tag Archives: accusation

I consistently tell people that we (as in “human beings”) are all bad at negotiation.

But why do I keep trying to bring everyone (including myself!) down? Doesn’t this statement risk causing disagreement, resistance or friction? And if so, wouldn’t that constitute bad negotiation behaviour on my part? Absolutely! That is a very valid point; skilled negotiators rarely cause disagreement, and only do so if it serves a specific purpose.

Fortunately, in this case it does serve a purpose. The purpose is to help people realize that effective negotiation behaviour is counterintuitive. We typically do not adopt new and counterintuitive behaviour without first experiencing a shock to our system. In lectures that shock is called the AHA! moment, where participants suddenly realize that something they have been doing for the last 20-50 years causes rather than resolves problems between themselves and others.

Unfortunately you and I don’t have the opportunity to share a lecture theatre, so how else can I create this AHA! moment for you? How about I give you a piece of carefully designed homework?

…and I just lost 50% of my readers 😉

For the rest of you, the homework is as follows: The next time you in an angry state write an email response someone else, I want you to try the following:

Create a new email.

Write your response.

Don’t send the email, instead save it as a draft.

Repeat steps 1-3 ten times.

Then compare version 10 with version 1.

My prediction is that version 1 will be comparatively more focused on you, how you feel, the problem you perceive, why you are right, and the selective evidence that supports your arguments. Writing this email will make you feel better. But sending this email will make you feel something else; most likely regret.

In contrast, version 10 will have more focus on both parties, commonalities, and how the process can move forward towards agreement and outcomes. Version 10 will also have less inflammatory language, accusations, projections, transference, and other forms of pollution that predictably cause negotiations to derail. Sending this version of the email is more likely to get you your desired outcome.

So how does this prove that influence is counterintuitive? Well, you just proved it to yourself! I haven’t seen your ten versions, but I know that you will agree that version 10 is more influential than version 1. I suspect that you will even agree that your first response, i.e. your intuitive response, would have done a terrible job of helping you get your desired outcome.

Now, when writing emails we can afford 10 attempts to improve on our initial, intuitive response. But how many attempts do we get in our face-to-face interactions..? Oh, that’s right, just the one… Ouch!

If only there was something we could do to improve that unrehearsed first version of our face-to-face interaction with others… What if there was a book that we could read? A book that could serve as our companion on a life long journey towards outstanding negotiation performance…? 😉

“What? Alright Filip… I buy the other stuff you posted here, but assume agreement…? Isn’t that dangerous? What if we at the end of the negotiation believe we have agreement and the other party believes they agreed to something completely different? Couldn’t that spell disaster?”

At the end of the negotiation we certainly wish to ensure that all parties involved leave with the same understanding of what we have agreed to.

But until we reach this point in the negotiation we are dramatically more likely to make the opposite mistake; to assume disagreement when there is none. This assumption has the unfortunate property of triggering a destructive negotiation pattern that we are all guilty of.

Once we assume that our opinions are incompatible we become preoccupied with supporting our position in order to win. Insights from psychology explain that we lose objectivity at this point, and effectively try to manufacture or manipulate available evidence to support the view we already have. In the process we pollute the interaction with assumptions, accusations, judgements and anything else that we can find to make us feel like winners and make the other side look like losers.

So what can we do instead? Well, instead if assuming disagreement, negotiators assume misunderstanding. Rather than assuming that our opinions are incompatible, we assume that we simply haven’t yet understood out how they are compatible. Additionally, we fight the (delicious) temptation to blame the other party for not understanding us. Rather we assume that we don’t understand each other. The process we chose to follow is one of letting all parties clarify their opinion, and confirm that they understand the opinion of others.

It helps create a healthy mindset for negotiation to assume… no…. to believe that this process can always lead to agreement.